[Official] Evan Mobley as a Cleveland Cavaliers thread

lmao

 

Man, y'all like some petty baseball pitchers, which is every baseball pitcher. love it.
Not to defend DD but he did have Manu and Tony Parker before even Pop thought they were a big deal. People fall for players for different reasons.

Mobley 6 points and 7 rebounds those are 39 year old Mo Taylor numbers. He's done. out of the league tomorrow. (Green haters logic).

 

I like Cade, Green, Mobley, and Barnes and want to see them all do well

I watch Cade and Barnes play a lot…especially Cade

the only rookie in the top 5 I don’t care for is Suggs, but I don’t want to see him be as bad as he’s been…he’s just sort of irrelevant to me

 

Doesn't bug me - I have players I like and those I don't.....and I like Green - I just want him to have to earn his role.....much like Kobe did, or any other young player.

DD

 

14/12/3 last night

 

12/6 on 3-10 shooting

Needs to learn from the bench and earn more pt.

 

He was being sarcastic because he actually was widely regarded as a generational talent before he was drafted. His defense and rebounding were never in question at all.

Scoring was supposed to take a couple of seasons to come online, but that was also widely regarded as a thing that would eventually happen, not a maybe.

Green leading the league in scoring wasn't something real analysts agreed with. Patrick likely follows Green on tictok, which is where Green fans get most of their information. It's actually brilliant. Inflating your own value with social media.

It would never work with a good organization of course. The problem is, that hasn't been us since tilman and Co took over.

 

Who necro bumped this Michael Olowokandi thread

 

Have you looked at the list of number 2 picks?
Just to name a few, these are some of the all time biggest busts in history of the league. Not sure why you think It should be a sure thing. Not even close. Last 20 years you can say Ja Morant and Kevin Durant are the only stars.
Sam Bowie
Michael Beasley
MKG
Hasheem Thabeet
Marvin Bagley
Derrick Williams
Evan Turner
Jabari Parker
Darko Millicic
Jay Williams
Marvin Williams
Stromile Swift


The rest are decent role players not great players,

 

He just talks out of his ass. Not sure why anyone even reads his posts anymore

 

hoping Jalen turns out to be Kevin Durant. But it's crazy the bust material coming from the #2 pick.. so bizarre.

 

So you think looking at the raw numbers of 6 and 7 gives an overview of how he impacts the game?

Those might be Mo Taylors numbers but that's the only thing Mo Taylor did and Mobley does a lot more on defense and in facilitating the offense.

Terrible take.

 

Cavs starting to look like a real threat in the East. If we didn't pick up Sengun I'd be mad that we missed out on Mobley, but Green and Sengun are good gets.

 

Just FYI. Tyreke Evans won Rookie of the Year in a draft class with Harden, Curry, and Blake Griffin

 

https://theathletic.com/3013146/202...t-pick-jabari-smith-hollingers-week-that-was/

Third in defense. Fourth in net rating. First in the East in SRS, the schedule-adjusted rating used by Basketball-Reference. First!

This team has beaten Miami by 26, Chicago by 22 and Dallas by 18; and just had an 82-point first-half this weekend. Their only loss to a losing team was by six points to the 13-14 Celtics, while they’re 9-1 against the other bottom-feeders. They’re 9-5 on the road.

This team sounds like a contender when I describe it that way, right?

This team is … the Cleveland Cavaliers???

Cleveland is 16-12 and can jump Miami for fourth place in the East if the Cavs beat the visiting Heat tonight. If you’re looking for the fluky part, I’m still trying to find it.

It’s been an amazing turnaround for a Cavs team that went 22-50 last season and lost last season’s leading scorer, Collin Sexton, for the season to a torn meniscus. They’ve done this against one of the league’s most difficult schedules too. Eventually, of course, that evens out: Cleveland’s slate after the All-Star break is Charmin soft.

Somehow, after spending the first three years post-LeBron as hopelessly bad, with Kevin Love moping around the court while a slew of not-quite-ready-for-prime-time youngsters took their lumps, quite suddenly the Cavs are … good?

Just look at some of these clips from Saturday’s second-quarter joy fest against Sacramento. It was a borderline orgasmic experience for Cleveland fans, one of those special moments where the entire crowd looks at each other in surprise as if to say, “Wait, are we actually good? I think we might be good.”

How about a Jarrett Allen-Evan Mobley combo shot block into a transition 3 into Love cheerleading like a young Kent Bazemore on the bench? This was toward the tail end of an explosion where the Cavs scored 39 points in eight minutes. Is this real? Where am I?

Would you prefer the Allen block leading to a poster dunk before the bench goes crazy? Fine …

Yes, apparently the Cavs are good, and in ways that seem totally sustainable. They’ve had some injuries, they’ve had a tough schedule and their young guys are still on the upswing.

But … how?

Obviously, we pay the most attention to personnel changes, and Cleveland has one big one that is a huge part of its story: Drafting Evan Mobley. The third pick seems to have the inside track on the Rookie of the Year award (Scottie Barnes and Cade Cunningham will still have something to say about this), as he’s been good from the word go as the Cavs’ starting power forward.

The 14.0 points per game are nice and all, but the real story is at the defensive end. Mobley has blocked 5.0 percent of opponent shots when he plays, a top-10 rate in the league, and even that understates his impact given how often he’s guarding on the perimeter. He’s able to switch on small guards and use his length to swallow up space on the perimeter, especially in zone defenses. I wrote about it earlier this year so I won’t repeat myself, but Mobley’s defense in some ways has been even more amazing than expected.

Consider this: Most rookies, even ones who flash impressive talent like Mobley, end up being net negatives on defense. There’s just too much going on that they have to adjust to at the NBA level.

Mobley? The Cavs give up a paltry 98.5 points per 100 possessions with him on the court, a league-leading rate. Without him, that skies to 108.7.

Overall, a Cleveland unit that ranked just 25th in the league last season is now third in defensive efficiency. Pairing Mobley with Jarrett Allen — who himself has made a strong case to make the All-Star team — has basically made the painted area a no-fly zone for Cavs’ opponents. Cleveland opponents are only shooting 60.6 percent in the basket area, a figure that leads the league by a wide margin.

Opponent shooting percentage, 0-3 feet
Team | Opp. FG%
Cleveland | 60.6
New York | 62.3
Chicago | 63.6
L.A. Clippers | 64.5
San Antonio | 64.7
League average | 67.2

Kudos here should also go to Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff for leaning into Cleveland’s bigness by starting Lauri Markkanen at small forward. If there’s one thing Bickerstaff’s history has made clear, it’s that he loves him some big lineups. (Full disclosure: Bickerstaff was head coach in Memphis from 2017 to 2019 when I worked for the Grizzlies.) He experimented with pairing Larry Nance, Andre Drummond and Kevin Love together in the before times and tried similar things with us in Memphis, even playing 6-foot-9 Omri Casspi at the two at times.

Most pundits predicted disaster for the Markkanen-at-three lineup, but he’s held better than expected on the wing … and also, so what if he gets beat since two fly-swatters are waiting behind him. Instead, Markkanen’s 3-point threat has given the offense a much-needed spacing dimension, and posting him up against small wings has given the offense another wrinkle. He’s also proven useful as a cutter, with the size to finish once he’s on his way to the cup.

Is it optimal to have Markkanen in this role? Probably not. But it’s also the best use of the players Cleveland has available. Overall, Markkanen-Allen-Mobley is plus-73 in 615 minutes. That’ll do. Bickerstaff, who began the year with many in the league wondering whether he’d survive it, is for the moment a Coach of the Year candidate.

However, a turnaround this profound rarely has one cause. Mobley has been a catalyst, but the causes of Cleveland’s turnaround go much deeper:

• After two years of taking his lumps, Darius Garland has turned the corner in a major way. Having two talented bigs around has helped inoculate him against size mismatches on defense and provided ample lob targets on offense, and he’s taken full advantage.
• Allen has played like an All-Star after the Cavs knifed their way into the 2020 James Harden trade to pry him away (costing them only a pick in the 20s that eventually became Houston’s Josh Christopher). On the first year of a five-year, $100 million deal with a flat salary structure, his 72.5 true shooting percentage isn’t just a dunk fest either — he’s shown the ability to attack off the dribble, pass from the high post and convert short hook shots against other bigs.
• A lopsided trade of Taurean Prince for Ricky Rubio sent out limited production and a future second and brought back perhaps the best backup point guard in the league.
• Cedi Osman, who looked unplayable at times last year, has out of the blue morphed into a knockdown shooter and an important secondary playmaker for the bench unit.
• Trading Nance for Markkanen drew a lot of criticism but has been a clear win thus far, especially since Markkanen is only 24 and can grow with this core.
• Finally, Love has been reborn. Looking as healthy as he has in years and once again wristing full-court outlet passes, crashing the glass and hitting 3s, he’s been a top-notch bench player and, as noted above, an unexpectedly joyful witness to the breakouts from Allen and Mobley.

So with Cleveland looking good, there’s only question left … what now?

As my colleague Joe Vardon pointed out, trading the injured Sexton for a wing-sized player sure seems like an obvious next move on the chessboard. (One potential stumbling block: The Cavs are only $3 million from the tax line, and Sexton only makes $6.3 million, limiting the universe of potential Sexton-for-ThatGuy trades.)

Cleveland’s play during Sexton’s injury is getting into “feature not a bug” territory. Despite his scoring exploits, the Cavs have played dramatically better without Sexton on the floor in all four of his seasons, owing mostly to his limited impact as a passer and lack of size, focus or anticipation (take your pick) at the defensive end. Cleveland was outscored by 5.8 points per 100 in his minutes this year; they’re plus-6.6 per 100 without him, the best off-court figure of any player on the team.

With Garland emerging as the on-ball engine, Mobley and Allen ascendant in the middle and the Cavs no longer desperate to anoint somebody, anybody, as their “star” en route to another 27-win season, it’s not clear where Sexton fits here.

That’s a minor problem if he’s on a rookie contract, but a major one if it involves paying him real money. The Cavs have some pretty sweet cap scenarios of the summer of 2023 especially, and they might be able to find somebody easier to slot in around the Garland-Mobley-Allen core (even if it involves an overpay). In the meantime, they could bring back Rubio on a one-year deal to shore up the backcourt. I just don’t see a scenario where paying Sexton for multiple years in the high teens makes sense for this roster.

Regardless of how they choose, step one is complete. Cleveland is now in the enviable area of figuring out how to build around an actual core, rather than praying the assorted random guys on their roster have any core at all. The contracts of Allen and Mobley — who combined will take up less than quarter of the cap in 2024-25 — give them a three-year run to get the rest of the roster right and build something truly contention-worthy.

That part is mostly for later, but let’s get back to the main point for today: Cleveland looks like a playoff team. Right now.

 

I remember that, Tyreke had a good rookie season but fell off in his 3rd year I think.

 

If our GM is picking them, he is not good enough and should be fired.

DD